Last Words
by GalaxyGirl317
Summary: Autumn Evergreen has tried to commit suicide twice, but her whole life changes when she runs away from home and stays the night at the Museum of Natural History.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue-

Rain poured down in buckets all around me. It was rather ironic, the rain. It had rained the day I was born and now it was raining on the day I committed suicide. I wondered who would find me here…here in the museum's loading dock. My corpse drenched with rain.

There was no moonlight tonight, but the streetlight gave me enough light to see what I was doing. It glinted off Attila's stolen knife. I swallowed hard and held it to my throat. One slice and my life would be over.

I took a deep breath and pulled the dagger back, preparing to cut my jugular cord.

"Autumn!"

I groaned. Of all the exhibits, why did it have to be this one?

"Autumn! For the love of God, what do you think you are doing?"

How was I supposed to answer that? How was I supposed to tell him it was a mistake that I had been born in the first place? How was I supposed to tell him this was for his own good? I was too perfect to be near the others. Or, at least, that's what my mother said.

"Autumn, do you hear me?"

Slowly, I turned around, still with the knife held to my throat. Neither of us knew what to say. We just stared at each other for what seemed all eternity. Swiftly, I removed the knife from my throat. He nodded at me.

"I think it will be safe to say that this will be kept a secret?"

"Yes…"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1-

It was a bright, crystal-clear morning when I woke. Unfortunately, the weather did not affect my mother's rage. She was yelling at me. No surprise there.

I was expected to be the perfect girl. Anything below an A+ in school and I was grounded for three months. I had to wear an itchy school uniform that always had to be flawlessly pressed. I didn't really mind the proper grammar thing. It was ok with me. When I was alone I could say whatever I wanted.

That faithful morning I decided I had had enough. Too much was too much. I was going to run away. After all, I_ was_ 17. Almost eighteen. Old enough to run away.

I couldn't remember quite when I first thought about running away, moving to a different country even. I was somewhere around eleven when I started saving for a plane ticket to Shire, England. I would go to college there, then get a job as a vetinary traveling with the hunter-jumper show circuit. The sooner, the better.

It was only until that very morning I decided now was the optimum time to run away.

I waited until dinner was over, then said I had to study. The lie in itself was rather satisfying. I was never, ever allowed to lie. I packed quickly and quietly. The final product was a small, lightweight fabric bag I had made myself. It had one hundred and fifty dollars of my savings in it along with some clothes, and my lucky charm, a chestnut horse with the gold eyes I had received from my grandpa for my thirteenth birthday.

At midnight, I snuck out the back door and into the cool night air, leaving a letter on the kitchen table explaining my absence. I needed to find a place to hide, and perhaps sleep for a little while. I turned down random side streets, dodging traffic at high speed. I skidded to a stop on the sidewalk in front of the Natural History Museum.

There were lights on inside. Not the usual, leave on for security purposes lights. Maybe there was a party of some kind going on in there. Whatever it was, is was a perfect place to get lost. There must be thousands of nooks and crannies to hide in in the four floors of museum.

I peeked inside and nearly died of early heart failure. I took a deep breath and looked again. Logical willed out the impossible in my brain, and I decided they were just having a costume party, or something. After all, there was no possible way the exhibits could come to life.

I tugged softly on one of the doors, but would not open. I took an educated guess that it was locked.

I spent the rest of the night dozing on a bench near Central Park. I didn't awake until dawn. I stayed on the bench for a while longer, wondering if my parents even missed me. At noon I left my post and went to a small café to buy lunch for myself.

At 6:30 P.M. I decided to make my way into the museum to find a place to hide until they closed the museum. I walked as fast as was strictly normal until I came upon the Tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Akmunrah. "Perfect!" I thought to myself, and squeezed in the space right behind one of the jackals.

I heard the five-minute warning, and then the click of the doors locking. The night guard came around, but didn't find. I breathed a long sigh of relief and crept out of my cramped hiding place.

There was a bench in the main lobby if I could get over there without being noticed. I ran on tiptoe down the stairs and stopped in my tracks heart pounding.

The giant tyrannosaurus rex was gone from its pedestal.

I took a shallow breath and was about to move forward again, when I yell stopped me in my tracks.

"Lawrence! Good evening my lad!"

The wax mannequin of Theodore Roosevelt was alive. It was moving. It was talking to the night guard, for God's sake! If my heart had been pounding before, it was now beating up a hailstorm.

"Good to see you also, Teddy!" said the night guard named Lawrence.

Suddenly Lawrence froze and stared straight at me. I stayed as motionless as was possible.

Theodore Roosevelt look at Lawrence in alarm and asked sharply, "Are you alright Lawrence?"

Lawrence whispered in a panicked sort of way, "We didn't happen to get a new exhibit did we, Teddy?"

"No dear boy, I am not aware of anything new. Why, may I enquire, do you ask?"

"There's a girl standing at the top of the stairs."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N- The prologue is giving me grief, so sorry in advance. I will try to update as soon as possible, and I will _never _give up on this story (crosses heart).

Chapter 2-

Theodore Roosevelt looked around at me. If I had stayed still before, I was frozen now. I started to open my mouth to speak, but then thought better of it and closed it. It was probably only about seven seconds but it felt like all eternity that we stood there and looked at each other.

Finally, I took a deep breath, and began my apology.

"Look, I'm sorry about this. I just ran away from home and thought I could hide in here. I didn't mean to interrupt your…party. I'm dreadfully sorry and I'll leave right now if you just unlock the doors."

Lawrence's bewildered look immediately turned to one of amusement. He looked around at the…well…Theodore Roosevelt thing.

They had one of those "silent conversions" adults have when they don't want you to know what you're thinking.

I wondered what I looked like to them. I truth, I probably looked like some gothic flapper from the '20s. I wore a vintage black beaded flapper dress, vintage black alligator-skin boots, and a flapper-style hat with a raven's feather stuck in it. My grandmother had given me a black pearl necklace. In fact, the only that made me look different from them was I wore theatrical make-up. The bright gold lipstick; gold, glittery blush; and exaggerated eyeliner that made me look somewhat like a gold phoenix.

It was rather amusing to see how Lawrence's mouth hung once he got a good look at me. I decided to be bold. I released my bottom lip that I only just realized that I had been holding, and said, "Lawrence the Night Guard, I'm afraid if you don't close at some point in the next hour, you might catch a fly. As for your companion, the Wax Mannequin of Theodore Roosevelt, are you some mardi-gras participant late to the party, or did you come to life? If you did come to life, you do realize you are supposed to be dead for, like, 95 years right?

Lawrence's face suddenly went white and he asked softly, "How did you get in here? McPhee's going to kill me!"

Theodore Roosevelt's voice seemed to have finally caught up with him. Looking over at the night guard he answered in a rather gruff manner, "Relax Lawrence! I do not have any notion as to how she got in here, but she looks like the kind of lass that might keep this rather strange secret."

I hiked up my skirts and slid down the polished banister. "Three things you can know if you wish, don't call me lass; strange is the biggest understatement I've heard in a long time; and I will you're your secret."

In the approximately 7 seconds that it took me to slide down the said banister I already had an audience. I realized with a jolt that all these people were supposed to be dead.

"Girl!" said Lawrence rather roughly, earning him a sharp glance from the 26th president. I startled and whirled around to face him.

"Girl, what's your name?"

"Evergreen. Autumn Evergreen."

The inhabitants of the museum snickered. A small cowboy and Roman I recognized from the Hall of the Miniatures started arguing rather loudly for being so small. I looked down my nose at them.

The cowboy began to speak with a thick Texan accent.

"Hey sister, ya know autumn ain't real green, right?

The Roman shook his head mournfully and slapped his friend.

"Jedidiah, that's her name. Don't make fun of it," turning to me he apologized, "Please ignore him. His is terribly barbaric at the best of times."

I quickly thought of the most scathing comment I could. "I would say something, but I usually save my comments for people who aren't smaller than a thimble and supposed to be dead." I gave a harsh laugh.

I turned my attention back to Lawrence and Roosevelt and asked the night guard, "What's your name?"

"Larry Daily."

"Daily, is it true that these people are alive?"

"Last time I checked."

I walked over to where Roosevelt was standing. I stopped dead in front of him and raised an eyebrow.

"You're a wax mannequin. I hate to be frank, but wax is inanimate."

"True," remarked Roosevelt.

"Teddy!" interjected Daily.

"Yes?"

"Do you think we should her show the tablet?"

"An excellent plan, my lad."

I raised the other eyebrow and enquired, "Tablet? What is this Tablet?"

Larry said bluntly, "It brings them," here he made a general sweep of the museum with his arms, "to life."

The Egyptian prince I had seen earlier took a long look at me and commented, "It is my tablet. The Tablet of Akmunrah."


End file.
